Day 10: Believing in Ourselves?

What does it mean when we say we believe in ourselves, do we believe that we can reach the dreams we aspire to reach or do we depend solely upon ourselves to get us there. If the answer is the latter than we have it all wrong. We cannot get anywhere without God. He is the source of our very being, we cannot breathe without Him. And if we can't do that on our own how are we going to get through life on our own? The simple answer is that we can't. 

I grew up being taught by teachers to always believe in myself, to trust myself, to believe and you can achieves. They told me, whatever you set your mind to, you can do, just believe. You can imagine my disappointment when I wasn't a big Disney Channel start with my own television show by the time I was 14. They just told me to believe in myself, to believe that I could do, focus and you will get there. My family taught me to pray. As I got older my perspective begin to change, and I found the source of my problem, pride. I felt like I could do everything on my own, I didn't need help from anyone I had myself and my dream and that was all I needed. I was going to make it to the top and everyone was going to know that my success was self-made. I prayed occasionally when I felt like I really needed God to get me what I wanted. I cannot tell you how wrong I was, when my focus began to shift off myself and focus on God, and entire new plan was revealed. When my vocabulary changed from, I can to God can, my life started to change. I began to realize that I was not meant to take on the world, I cannot go through life alone. I thought I could, and that was the very thing that broke me, because my pride had been built up for so long that it took me a while for me to believe that God could even do things for me. I was that person that always had to know what was going on, and where I was going, but when I put my faith in Christ all of the changed. I began to understand that my plan may look easier than His, but His is way better.

Philippians 4:11-13

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Paul is writing to the Philippians here, and he’s saying, I know how to be content. I know what it’s like to have a lot and to have nothing at all, And he goes into the last statement by saying I have learned the secret of facing this. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. In other words, he’s saying I cannot be content on my own, I cannot face these life struggles, and the sustain the blessings you give on my own. I’m running on your strength God, I need it to survive the good times and the bad times. I need you to live!

I think we love the idea of believing in ourselves until we need someone else to depend on because depending on ourselves is no longer working. That’s when we turn to God, when we can’t handle it anymore. We must learn to stop using God as a tool. We tend to find the place in our lives where God “fits” and keep Him there because that’s where and when we need Him the most. Often times we use God to get what we want, or we try to put Him on a leash. Almost as if we are saying, "okay God I will let you take me so far, but I got it from here. I don't need you anymore I can handle it now, thanks for the ride." As I've mentioned before, we have to let go of what we want for ourselves and trust that whatever God is doing, it's better. I think the problem with believing solely in ourselves is that, in our eyes, we become invincible. We can do anything, and go anywhere because we believe we can, we start to believe that we are untouchable. Some places we aren't meant to go and some things we are not meant to do, at that point in time.

If we believe that we can can do all things through Christ, then it is possible. It's called faith. But when we decide that we can do it alone, apart from God that's when we  start to stumble. There is nothing wrong with believing in your abilities, but remember who gave you those abilities. We are here by the grace of God, we are not here on our own doing, we are here because God wants us in the place and position we are in. We can believe in ourselves all we want but without Christ we have no power, we cannot do anything without him Our hope is in the Lord not ourselves. It is through faith that we are given the strength to live, that we are given the ability to be better than who we were. As we take the focus off of ourselves and put it into Christ, we will find ourselves doing things we never thought we would do. We will find ourselves in positions we could only have ever dreamed of being in. When we give ourselves up to Christ, what we get in return is beyond us. We must choose to give up trusting in ourselves and trust in God and the outcome will be a million times greater than what we thought we could do on our own. Life is just so much better with Christ.

Reflection

Today just shift your focus from self to God. Make that slight change in your vocabulary to choose to trust God over self.

Prayer Time

If this message spoke to you today, or it didn’t as much. Talk to God about it. Talk to God about how you are feeling. This is just a conversation between you and Him. You can write it down, or you can speak. However the spirit leads you, just let the Holy Spirit guide your prayer today.